Vehicles may recover exhaust heat for transfer to various other systems in an internal combustion engine.
The inventors herein have recognized that rapid heat at engine start is not available in most systems because the systems require the exhaust system to warm up first, before wasted engine heat can be used to heat up various components. Further, transferring heat away from the exhaust system during a cold start operation delays the catalytic converter ‘light-off.” As a result, the catalytic converter does not operate at an efficient temperature to burn trapped hydrocarbons, thereby increasing exhaust emissions.
As such, one example approach to address the above issues is claim 1.
According to one embodiment, a method for recovering exhaust heat includes reducing a volume of a circulating heat transfer fluid and discharging a heat storage device to heat an engine component. The method further includes, distributing the circulating heat transfer fluid to one or more engine systems. As such, heat may be discharged directly from a heat recovery system and provided to another engine system. Further, the heat storage device may be recharged by reducing the volume of the circulating heat transfer fluid. This configuration enables stored heat from a previous engine operation to be available at engine start to rapidly warm up various engine components.
It should be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.